The Immaculate Conception


Gaétan Soucy - 1994
    The survivors’ fractured world is suffocatingly circumscribed by neighbors and the Church. Focusing on troubled bank clerk Remouald Tremblay and desperately unrequited Clémentine Clément, Gaétan Soucy’s acclaimed fourth novel explores the same ominously enchanted terrain as his award-winning Vaudeville! Soucy brilliantly illuminates the dark corners where ordinary people fear to look and reminds that for every moment of justice, there are numerous crimes that will remain forever secret.

Road to Seeing


Dan Winters - 2013
    An immensely respected portrait photographer, Dan is well known for an impeccable use of light, color, and depth in his evocative images.In Road to Seeing, Dan shares his journey to becoming a photographer, as well as key moments in his career that have influenced and informed the decisions he has made and the path he has taken. Though this book appeals to the broader photography audience, it speaks primarily to the student of photography--whether enrolled in school or not--and addresses such topics as creating a visual language; the history of photography; the portfolio; street photography; personal projects; his portraiture work; and the need for key characteristics such as perseverance, awareness, curiosity, and reverence.By relaying both personal experiences and a kind of philosophy on photography, Road to Seeing tells the reader how one photographer carved a path for himself, and in so doing, helps equip the reader to forge his own.

The Glassblower of Murano


Marina Fiorato - 2006
    Glassblowing is the lifeblood of the Republic, and Venetian mirrors are more precious than gold. Jealously guarded by the murderous Council of Ten, the glassblowers of Murano are virtually imprisoned on their island in the lagoon. But the greatest of the artists, Corradino Manin, sells his methods and his soul to the Sun King, Louis XIV of France, to protect his secret daughter. In the present day his descendant, Leonora Manin, leaves an unhappy life in London to begin a new one as a glassblower in Venice. As she finds new life and love in her adoptive city, her fate becomes inextricably linked with that of her ancestor and the treacherous secrets of his life begin to come to light.

Critical Terms for Art History


Robert S. Nelson - 1996
    But questions about the categories of "art" and "art history" acquired increased urgency during the 1970s, when new developments in critical theory and other intellectual projects dramatically transformed the discipline. The first edition of Critical Terms for Art History both mapped and contributed to those transformations, offering a spirited reassessment of the field's methods and terminology.Art history as a field has kept pace with debates over globalization and other social and political issues in recent years, making a second edition of this book not just timely, but crucial. Like its predecessor, this new edition consists of essays that cover a wide variety of "loaded" terms in the history of art, from sign to meaning, ritual to commodity. Each essay explains and comments on a single term, discussing the issues the term raises and putting the term into practice as an interpretive framework for a specific work of art. For example, Richard Shiff discusses "Originality" in Vija Celmins's To Fix the Image in Memory, a work made of eleven pairs of stones, each consisting of one "original" stone and one painted bronze replica. In addition to the twenty-two original essays, this edition includes nine new ones—performance, style, memory/monument, body, beauty, ugliness, identity, visual culture/visual studies, and social history of art—as well as new introductory material. All help expand the book's scope while retaining its central goal of stimulating discussion of theoretical issues in art history and making that discussion accessible to both beginning students and senior scholars.Contributors: Mark Antliff, Nina Athanassoglou-Kallmyer, Stephen Bann, Homi K. Bhabha, Suzanne Preston Blier, Michael Camille, David Carrier, Craig Clunas, Whitney Davis, Jas Elsner, Ivan Gaskell, Ann Gibson, Charles Harrison, James D. Herbert, Amelia Jones, Wolfgang Kemp, Joseph Leo Koerner, Patricia Leighten, Paul Mattick Jr., Richard Meyer, W. J. T. Mitchell, Robert S. Nelson, Margaret Olin, William Pietz, Alex Potts, Donald Preziosi, Lisbet Rausing, Richard Shiff, Terry Smith, Kristine Stiles, David Summers, Paul Wood, James E. Young

Dear Dad


KY-Mani Marley - 2010
    Though Marley's iconic life was cut short before his time, his legacy lives on as vibrantly as it did when he walked among us. This is not only true because of his timeless music, but because of the musical genius of the extraordinary children he left behind.Born in Falmouth, Jamaica in 1976 as the tenth son of legendary reggae icon Bob Marley, Ky-Mani Marley discovered his musical talents late in life, rising to become an international music artist and film actor. Ky-Mani has not only written and performed songs of redemption around the world, like his famous father, but has lived and survived to recant his own personally redemptive story in the face of some very stark urban realities unbefitting any human, let alone a 'Marley.'Dear Dad, is an arresting narrative of a son locked out of his iconic father's shelter for the first half of his life and forced to survive the poverty-stricken, predator-infested streets of one of Miami's most violent ghettos, Liberty City. Initially estranged from his siblings and cut off from any financial benefit of the Marley Estate, young Ky-Mani's gritty ascent from a bullet-riddled life to the world stages he now commands as a Grammy-nominated recording artist are chronicled in this gripping biography.Today a dedicated father and family man traveling to all corners of the world, performing no less than 100 shows per year, Marley knew he�d reached a plateau of transformation in his life when he was named 'Philanthropist of the Year' by the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, Better World Awards.His life is truly a 'redemption song.'

Caesar Triumphant


R.W. Peake - 2013
    The story opens with the last target of conquest: an island nation known then as the Isles of Wa, and what we know today as the country of Japan. It will be the final challenge of a remarkable career, but facing him and his battle-hardened Legions are a race of people as fiercely dedicated to the profession of arms, and fanatically devoted to their emperor as any foe Caesar and his Romans have ever faced. The Wa have never tasted defeat, repelling every attempted invasion of their sacred islands. In these warriors, has Caesar and his unstoppable force of an army finally met their match in the immovable object, in the form of the men of Wa, or will Caesar once again be triumphant? Caesar Triumphant is an alternative history, by the author of the bestselling and critically acclaimed Marching With Caesar series, R.W. Peake, featuring Titus Pullus, Legionary of Rome.

The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet


Reif Larsen - 2009
    Spivet for iPad. A brilliant, boundary-leaping debut novel tracing twelve-year-old genius map maker T.S. Spivet's attempts to understand the ways of the worldWhen twelve-year-old genius cartographer T.S. Spivet receives an unexpected phone call from the Smithsonian announcing he has won the prestigious Baird Award, life as normal-if you consider mapping family dinner table conversation normal-is interrupted and a wild cross-country adventure begins, taking T.S. from his family ranch just north of Divide, Montana, to the museum's hallowed halls. T.S. sets out alone, leaving before dawn with a plan to hop a freight train and hobo east. Once aboard, his adventures step into high gear and he meticulously maps, charts, and illustrates his exploits, documenting mythical wormholes in the Midwest, the urban phenomenon of "rims," and the pleasures of McDonald's, among other things. We come to see the world through T.S.'s eyes and in his thorough investigation of the outside world he also reveals himself. As he travels away from the ranch and his family we learn how the journey also brings him closer to home. A secret family history found within his luggage tells the story of T.S.'s ancestors and their long-ago passage west, offering profound insight into the family he left behind and his role within it. As T.S. reads he discovers the sometimes shadowy boundary between fact and fiction and realizes that, for all his analytical rigor, the world around him is a mystery. All that he has learned is tested when he arrives at the capital to claim his prize and is welcomed into science's inner circle. For all its shine, fame seems more highly valued than ideas in this new world and friends are hard to find. T.S.'s trip begins at the Copper Top Ranch and the last known place he stands is Washington, D.C., but his journey's movement is far harder to track: How do you map the delicate lessons learned about family and self? How do you depict how it feels to first venture out on your own? Is there a definitive way to communicate the ebbs and tides of heartbreak, loss, loneliness, love? These are the questions that strike at the core of this very special debut.Now a major motion picture directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and starring Kyle Catlett and Helena Bonham Carter.

Cherry Crush


Cathy Cassidy - 2010
    She and Dad are moving to Somerset where a new mum and a bunch of brand-new sisters await. And on Cherry's first day there she meets Shay Fletcher - the kind of boy who should carry a government health warning. But Shay already has a girlfriend, Cherry's new stepsister, Honey. Cherry knows her friendship with Shay is dangerous - it could destroy everything. But that doesn't mean she's going to stay away from him...

A Tuscan Childhood


Kinta Beevor - 1993
    There her parents were part of a vibrant artistic community that included Aldous Huxley, Bernard Berenson, and D. H. Lawrence. Meanwhile, Kinta and her brother explored the glorious countryside, participated in the region's many seasonal rites and rituals, and came to know and love the charming, resilient Italian people. With the coming of World War II the family had to leave Aulla; years later, though, Kinta would return to witness the courage and skill of the Tuscan people as they rebuilt their lives. Lyrical and witty, A Tuscan Childhood is alive with the timeless splendour of Italy.

Carry This Book


Abbi Jacobson - 2016
      With bright, quirky, and colorful line drawings, Jacobson brings to life actual and imagined items found in the pockets and purses, bags and glove compartments of real and fantastical people—whether it’s the contents of Oprah’s favorite purse or Harry Potter’s duffel bag, Amelia Earhart’s pencil case or Bernie Madoff’s suitcase.   How many self-tanning lotions are in Donald Trump’s weekender? What’s inside Martha Stewart’s hand-knit fanny pack? What kind of protein bars does Michelle Obama hide in her tiny clutch at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner? Carry This Book provides a humorous and insightful look into how the things we carry around every day can make up who we are.

The Sunset Sisters


Cecilia Lyra - 2020
    A surprising inheritance. A summer that changes everything.As children, half-sisters Cassie and Julie were nearly inseparable, bonded through happy, lazy summers playing barefoot in the surf and sleeping out on the porch of their grandmother’s Hamptons beach house. Though from wildly different backgrounds, each magical summer the girls were as close as only best friends, accomplices, sisters can be. But they haven’t spoken in nearly fifteen years—not since the funeral of Cassie’s mother—and now there is only resentment and painful memories between them.Successful and self-contained, Cassie is shocked to learn the requirements of their nana’s will—that she and Julie spend one final summer together in the Hamptons house in order to inherit. Cassie agrees reluctantly, she needs an excuse to leave Boston and give the growing rumors about her personal life a chance to die down.And for Julie, who is discovering too late the cracks in her marriage, it is the chance to repair at least one damaged relationship. But for the two sisters to regain what they had, they will have to finally confront what happened the night Cassie lost her mother. With their Nana’s wisdom guiding the way, could this summer bring painful discoveries, and a new direction, for both sisters?An emotional and absorbing novel full of family drama and dark secrets. Perfect for fans of Elin Hilderbrand, Emily Giffin and Mary Kay Andrews.

The Southern Living Party Cookbook: A Modern Guide to Gathering


Elizabeth Heiskell - 2018
    Packed with delicious recipes from the original book like Smoked Salmon Canapes, Hot Cheese Squares, and Brandy Alexanders, the book also includes popular picks from the current pages of Southern Living as well as Elizabeth’s treasured recipe box. The Southern Living Party Cookbook is an entertaining handbook loaded with lifestyle tips and hilarious Heiskell stories, along with lush photography to help you get the look from table setting to plated dish.

Torture the Artist


Joey Goebel - 2004
    He is painfully unaware that these torments are due to the secret manipulations of New Renaissance, an experimental organization that is testing the age-old idea that art results from suffering. Since culture is so significantly influenced by music, movies, and television, New Renaissance hopes to improve the mindless mainstream by raising writers who emphasize artistic quality over commerce. As part of its top-secret sub-project, New Renaissance hires reluctant ex-musician Harlan Eiffler to manipulate its most promising prodigy, Vincent. Wickedly antisocial and deeply disgusted by what passes for entertainment in the twenty-first century, Harlan clandestinely pulls the strings so that Vincent remains a true artist. All the while, he poses as Vincent's manager, simultaneously nurturing his prolific career and torturing his soul.

Artist's Sketchbook: Exercises and Techniques for Sketching on the Spot


Cathy Johnson - 2016
    She and other artists have opened their sketchbooks to share their favorite subjects, ranging from nature's paraphernalia to aging buildings, crashing waves and beloved pets. You will travel the world through sketches and stories, through deserts and deep woods, cities and small towns. Along the way, you'll pick up helpful tips and clever, on-location improvisations for making your sketching sessions pleasurable, safe and productive.- Chapters focus on sketching subjects close to home, on travels, in nature, in urban settings and from everyday life. - 10+ artists share favorite sketches, tips and techniques. - 15+ demos reveal on-the-spot sketches as they come together. - Includes expert advice on getting the best results from a range of mediums, including graphite, ink, colored pencil, watercolor and gouache.The Artist's Sketchbook is pure delight, full of passion and possibility, ideas and inspirations. You'll learn ways to be prepared, simplify, still your inner critic, embrace the here and now, and in doing so, discover wonders you never thought to look for.

Paris Versus New York: A Tally of Two Cities


Vahram Muratyan - 2011
    Now Muratyan presents his unique observations in this delightful book, featuring visually striking graphics paired with witty, thought-provoking taglines that celebrate the special details of each city. Paris versus New York is a heartfelt gift to denizens of both cities and to those who dream of big-city romance.